Friday, August 24, 2007

Very Important Week

The Yankees have 4 against Detroit and then 3 with Boston. The Yankees have the opportunity to finish off the Tigers. Sweeping (unlikely to do in Detroit) would put the Yankees 7 games ahead of the Tigers in the Wild Card race. Depending how the Indians do, that would hardly eliminate the Tigers from the playoff race though.

With the Mussina-Verlander matchup to end the series, the sweep is hardly likely, but the Tigers do have to be careful, especially without Sheffield, of falling out of things.

The Yankees aren't getting that helped by the rain in Chicago. It's possible the Red Sox will be playing back-to-back double headers on Saturday and Sunday, if they can't get a game in today. The Red Sox have a day off on Monday, which gets the bullpen a day to recover. As far as the Yankee series goes, if they don't get a game in today, Schilling misses the series, but both Matsuzaka and Beckett remain in it, and they will probably have to call up Buchholz or Lester for a game, and with the amount the Yankees have seen Schilling, and have not seen those two, it might not be that bad for the Red Sox anyway. Although unless they put somebody on the DL, they won't be able to bring up Lester as he was sent down to recently. I'm assuming they'd prefer to call up Lester though, due to the fact that he's a lefty.

If Mussina gets wrecked again in his next start, seeing that it will be his final start before September 1st, I think that as the rosters are extended they should skip him in the rotation and try to work out his problems on the side, and in the mean time give Ian Kennedy a start and see how he does.

Nobody could have ever predicted that 2 pitchers who started the season in A-Ball could end up playing a large roll for the Yankees come the stretch run, but Kennedy is 12-2 over the 3 levels with a 1.86 ERA. And he still has that 1.86 ERA through five AAA starts. Over 140 minor league innings he has a .181 OBA, and 156 K's.

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